Ladybird Series

 "Bedtime Story"

Painting is 20”H x16”W

Materials; Oil, Charcoal and Graphite on Canvas

Ladybird series 561

A mixed media series on canvas

Horror stories can be as scrupulous as fairytales, & I hope to stir up poignant, dark, compelling emotions to the viewer through this series of over 20 mixed media canvases which encompass a variety of images which are delicate, sentimental & uneasy to view, they could be dark fairytales for adults-fables that illustrates our more blocked out or closed off impulses and deeds.

The theme of this series pertains to that which is beautiful in a horrific way or horrific in a beautiful way. The title “Ladybird series 561- Adventures from throughout history” is borrowed from popular children stories. Whether its seventeenth century fairytales or atrocities committed in the early half of the twentieth century, people have been fascinated by horror & the macabre.

In this series I intend to disquiet the viewer, allowing for deep insights into one's own moral code & impart a fresh awareness of the level of comfort with one’s own mortality. I have chosen my work wisely to leave the viewer with a lasting impression of the fleeting, beautiful fragility of existence.

A little about the title;

This is the largest Ladybird series produced between 1940 and 1980 and was one of the more popular.

This series examined many of the great men and women from history. It covers great rulers such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar; great explorers like Scott and Cook; it also explored some of the great civilisations of the world including the Aztecs, the Incas and the Vikings.

I chose the title to convey that often the versions of history that we first learn as children through storybooks, then later again in textbooks & we see rehashed through the media are are fairytales for grownups, to make death,war, disease, injustice & misfortune more palatable. I intend my series to show the disparity been the documented accounts of History and the actualitities of life and death within that timeframe. I wish to demonstrate how time passed & rose tinted glasses white wash over horrors & dark fairytales.

War, biological and chemical warfare,related medical trauma & the cyclical nature of existence are all explored.